We all know people who love to tinker with things — trying to make them better, bigger, faster, more efficient, easier to use. That’s what “innovation” is and it’s different than “invention.” The reason innovation is such a huge buzzword in the business literature today is because if you or your organization isn’t innovative, you can be sure someone else is. And that “someone” is usually your competition.

To stay competitive, you need to constantly monitor your department’s processes and procedures for ways to improve them. If you don’t know where to start, try this:

1. Monitor

You first need to know what’s being done, how it’s being done, and why it’s being done. If you don’t know the answers to these questions, you need to ask.

Who should you ask? Start with your employees and work your way up and out. If you’re a visual person, draw yourself a flow diagram for each process so you can clearly see what starts the process, how it moves, and where it goes after your department is finished with it.

2. Evaluate and analyze

Where do team members or customers get frustrated? Are there bottlenecks in any part of the process? What causes the most delays or money? Use “Root Cause Analysis” or “The 5 Whys Analysis” (you can Google these) to get to the root cause. Many “Improvements” fail because someone is trying to solve the wrong problem.

3. Design and model

Once you've identified the right problem to solve, you can begin to brainstorm ideas for an improved process.

The key to an effective process re-design is to engage your frontline people in solving the problem. They’re the ones closest to your customer (either external or internal), and they’re the ones who hear the complaints. Listen to them. They’re sure to have some great (and some not-so-great) ideas on how to fix the process.

Do a beta test of the process before rolling it out. There’s nothing more frustrating than introducing a new process that has its own problems that are sometimes worse than the ones in the old process.

4. Implement

Now that you’ve tested and debugged the new process, you’re ready to implement. Rolling out improvements can be a project in itself. Change is scary to most people. You’ll need to identify your key influencers in your group, get them on your side, and let them be the cheerleaders for the rest of the team and your customers.

5. Put your feet up on your desk and pat yourself on the back

Not exactly! Improvement is an all-the-time process, it’s not an event. As a manager, you’re now in the position of recognizing that change is always happening. You’re going to have to constantly review, monitor, evaluate, analyze, design, model and implement processes.

Now that you know the basics, get out there and start improving something!

Laurie Glover is an organizational development professional with extensive international experience in corporate training, academia, and sales and marketing management. Glover is CEO of QSTS, a consulting firm that helps organizations and individuals move from “good” to “great” by igniting organizational excellence. The firm specializes in workplace learning programs on leadership, management and supervisory skills, and in programs for lawyers and accountants in building their practices.